Twitter has hit gold in Latin America’s largest economy, Brazil, even when weak ad sales have pushed its stock down in recent weeks. Twitter’s top executive in the country told Reuters that last year, its advertising revenue rose about 30% in Brazil.
Unusual for Twitter to detail performance in a country
In a recent interview with Reuters, Fiamma Zarife said, “Brazil is a motor of growth for Twitter, both in users and in revenue.”
Zarife, who is a former head of agency relations in Brazil, assumed the top job in the country in January from Guilherme Ribenboim, who remains Twitter’s vice president for Latin America.
The 30% rise in advertising revenue in Brazil defied a two-year slowdown in the local economy and globally. It was an unusual move for the micro-blogging site to give any details on its performance in one country. The social network, which does not break down its revenue by country, does not give concrete sales numbers in the U.S. or in Brazilian currency.
An increased interest in real-time marketing was seen around the Olympics, which was hosted by Rio de Janeiro in August and brought new clients to the micro-blogging site. Increasing use of smartphones is also continuing to generate user growth in the country, notes Reuters.
How it plans to grow further in Brazil
Twitter’s monthly active users worldwide jumped 4% in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, but it surged 18% in Brazil, according to Zarife. There is more room for growth in the country because smartphone use there continues to grow, said Zarife. In comparison to around 83% globally, only 70% of Brazilians on Twitter connect via the mobile app.
Zarife’s strategy for attracting both advertising dollars and users will be to focus on live events and video content. She informed Reuters that in Twitter conversations about the Super Bowl, Brazil was second only to the U.S.
Twitter’s performance in Brazil may have been a miracle, but the company is still struggling to convince investors that it can fight the global war for online ad dollars against competitors like Facebook and Snapchat and win. Earlier this month, the social network posted its slowest quarterly revenue growth since it went public about four years ago.
On Wednesday, Twitter shares closed down 2.07% at $16.08. Year to date, the stock is down more than 1%, while in the last year, it is down more than 12%. The stock has a 52-week high of $25.25 and a 52-week low of $13.73.
